By Renewable Energy Focus staff
Wind Energy Update says that unlike in established industries where standards have been set, the rules and regulations for health and safety specific to the wind sector are far from clear.
To date there are no industry standards set for wind technicians and any company that performs work on a wind farm is forced to design and utilize their own safety strategies based on best practice. These improvised rules and regulations have met varying degrees of success.
The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recently turned its attention to the wind industry, and is making moves to understand in what way safety standards should apply.
The question over who is directly responsible for a breach in health and safety procedure is an on-going debate – does the owner / operator take all the blame, or is it the contractor or their sub-contractor? More to the point, who takes responsibility for the financial penalty, and whose company name gets published globally as the party at fault?
In such a nascent industry, bad market credibility can have serious knock-on implications for winning future business, Wind Energy Update warns.
